During the twentieth century, people of color and women, suffered from various inequalities. W.E.B. Du Bois’ and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (formerly known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson), mention some of the concepts that illustrate the gender and racial divide during this time. In their books, The Soul of Black Folk and The Yellow Wallpaper, Du Bois’ and Gilman illustrate and explain issues of oppression, dismissal, and duality that are relevant to issues of race and gender. In The Soul of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois talks about the struggles that the African Americans faced in the twentieth century. Du Bois mentions the conflict that concepts such as the “double consciousness” (or duality), “the veil” and the “color-line” posed for Black Americans. In his book he says that African Americans struggle with a double consciousness. He explicates that African American are forced to adopt two separate identities. First they are black, and that identity pertains to the color of their skin, the second identity is the American identity. However, he continues that the American identity is tainted because it is that if being American now but were slaves first. In other words, the double consciousness is saying that black people …show more content…
Du Bois’ and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, highlight the dissatisfaction that is felt by each of them as a result of the unjust state in which they are forced to live in due to the racial discrimination, oppression (based on both race and gender), and dismissal from those not affected. They both use personal experiences to further explain the concept. Du Bois and Gilman’s essay and short story are extremely similar, with the exception that Du Bois’ focuses on the racial divide, and Gilman focuses on woman position in society and in the marriage institution. They both share the theme that women and black people are prevented from moving up in society on the sole basis of gender and
W.E.B. DuBois, in The Souls of Black Folk describes the very poignant image of a veil between the blacks and the whites in his society. He constructs the concept of a double-consciousness, wherein a black person has two identities as two completely separate individuals, in order to demonstrate the fallacy of these opinions. J.S. Mill also describes a certain fallacy in his own freedom of thought, a general conception of individuals that allows them to accept something similar to DuBois’ double-consciousness and perpetuates the existence of the veil.
Gilman is an author whose writing is based on individuals making up America's collective identity. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is from the vantage points of being a woman, at a time when women were not supposed to have individual thoughts and personalities. At this time in history, the social roles of women were very well-defined: mothers and caretakers of the family, prim and proper creatures that were pleasant to look at, seen but not heard, and irrational and emotional. The identity of women were presupposed on them by men. At the time this story was written, social criticisms were on the rise and writers had more of an outlet to express themselves. Women's suffrage provided by many female writers, such as Gilman, the means to air the wrongs against women.
After slavery ended, many hoped for a changed America. However, this was not so easy, as slavery left an undeniable mark on the country. One problem ended, but new problems arose as blacks and whites put up “color lines” which led to interior identity struggles. These struggles perpetuated inequality further and led W. E. B. Du Bois to believe that the only way to lift “the Veil” would be through continuing to fight not only for freedom, but for liberty - for all. Others offered different proposals on societal race roles, but all recognized that “double consciousness” of both the individual and the nation was a problem that desperately needed to be solved.
The idea of double consciousness was first conceptualized by W.E.B. Du Bois. In his writing “The Souls of Black Folk” Du Bois reflects on the subjective consequences of being black in America. On the concept, Du Bois says: “After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,--an America...
“Too black for the white kids, too white for the black kids.” “Where do I fit in?” These are common questions one may ask themselves if he or she is struggling with double consciousness. Many people struggle with a double consciousness every day without even realizing the effects it has on them or even the people around them. Double consciousness was discovered in 1903 by W.E.B. Du Bois which he referenced the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society. He relayed his message in his writing “The Souls of Black Folk”. As stated before, double consciousness has many different effects on a person such as them trying to fit in, having to feel like they have to pick a side (black side or white side), or eventually losing themselves.
His forward-thinking views provided the cornerstone for African-American literature as well as a foundation for African-American exploration in sociology for years to come. The most prominent issue that Du Bois raises in the second chapter is that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.” The “color-line” that he discusses is centered on the division and segregation of people based on the color of their skin.
The American Narrative includes a number of incidents throughout American history, which have shaped the nation into what it is today. One of the significant issues that emerged was slavery, and the consequent emancipation of the slaves, which brought much confusion regarding the identification of these new citizens and whether they fit into the American Narrative as it stood. In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B Dubois introduces the concept of double consciousness as “the sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (Dubois 3). This later became the standard for describing the African-American narrative because of the racial identification spectrum it formed. The question of double consciousness is whether African-Americans can identify themselves as American, or whether the African designation separates them from the rest of society. President Barack Obama and Booker T. Washington, who both emerged as prominent figures representing great social change and progress for the African-American race in America, further illustrate the struggle for an identity.
In Du Bois' "Forethought" to his essay collection, The Souls of Black Folk, he entreats the reader to receive his book in an attempt to understand the world of African Americans—in effect the "souls of black folk." Implicit in this appeal is the assumption that the author is capable of representing an entire "people." This presumption comes out of Du Bois' own dual nature as a black man who has lived in the South for a time, yet who is Harvard-educated and cultured in Europe. Du Bois illustrates the duality or "two-ness," which is the function of his central metaphor, the "veil" that hangs between white America and black; as an African American, he is by definition a participant in two worlds. The form of the text makes evident the author's duality: Du Bois shuttles between voices and media to express this quality of being divided, both for himself as an individual, and for his "people" as a whole. In relaying the story of African-American people, he relies on his own experience and voice and in so doing creates the narrative. Hence the work is as much the story of his soul as it is about the souls of all black folk. Du Bois epitomizes the inseparability of the personal and the political; through the text of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois straddles two worlds and narrates his own experience.
Among the contributions to black liberation that W.E.B. Du Bois offered was his psycho-philosophical notion of double-consciousness, or twoness, a notion which Du Bois used to explain the African-American community’s strife to his largely white readership. A contemporary of Du Bois, late 19th century poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, described by Cornell English professor George B. Hutchinson as “the poet laureate of black America,” depicted the African-American’s struggle in terms similar to Du Bois’. This paper first analyzes Du Bois’ understanding of black twoness and then applies twoness’ alleged effects to Dunbar’s poetry, ultimately attempting to reveal Dunbar and Du Bois’ mutual conception of black bondage.
While to Marx and Engels race and ethnicity issues are secondary to class issues, another thinker, Du Bois, claims that “[t]he problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” According to him, the underlying force for any historical development is racial struggle and oppression of black people by white people. He attempts to explain the history using the issue of race while ignoring any class or economic struggle within the society – to Du Bois, “[s]tratification and order are secondary.”
Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs through the lens of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du bois provides an insight into two periods of 19th century American history--the peak of slavery in the South and Reconstruction--and how the former influenced the attitudes present in the latter. The Reconstruction period features Negro men and women desperately trying to distance themselves from a past of brutal hardships that tainted their souls and livelihoods. W.E.B. Du bois addresses the black man 's hesitating, powerless, and self-deprecating nature and the narrative of Harriet Jacobs demonstrates that the institution of slavery was instrumental in fostering this attitude.
Similarly to capitalism eroding workers’ identities, Du Bois’ maintains that racial inequalities perpetuate a comparable form of alienation. Du Bois contends that the rampant inequalities between how whites and blacks are treated force black people into a position of ignorance, in which they maintain “curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and the test the power of […] the white man” (4). The restriction imposed on black people subsequently restrict their ability to create their own identities. Additionally, not only are black people denied opportunities, but other privileged classes (i.e. white people) hold gaping misconceptions about how black people live and identify—as a result, Du Bois explains that black people are forced behind a veil, in which their identities are misunderstood. This ultimately leads whites to view blacks as “freed slaves” (18). Similar to Marx’s worries about capitalism, for Du Bois’, the disadvantaged classes are poorly understood and unfairly judged. Consequently, he questions whether there’s any need for black people to receive an education, absent a society grounded in equality; if society maintains such injustice, then blacks will continue to be denied political freedom and career opportunities (6). Thus, not only are black people symbolically restricted by cultural constraints, but they are also
... collective consciousness of the Black community in the nineteen hundreds were seen throughout the veil a physical and psychological and division of race. The veil is not seen as a simple cloth to Du Bois but instead a prison which prevents the blacks from improving, or gain equality or education and makes them see themselves as the negative biases through the eyes of the whites which helps us see the sacred as evil. The veil is also seen as a blindfold and a trap on the many thousands which live with the veil hiding their true identity, segregated from the whites and confused themselves in biases of themselves. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folks had helped to life off the veil and show the true paid and sorry which the people of the South had witnessed. Du Bois inclines the people not to live behind the veil but to live above it to better themselves as well as others.
Contemporary sociology grows from work of the past, this is no different in the manner that Patricia Hill Collins builds off W.E.B Du Bois understanding of double consciousness. In her essay, “Learning from the Insider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought”, Patricia Hill Collins analyses Black feminist thought through a discourse following three distinct themes that allow for Black Women within the field of sociology an unique perspective outside the boundaries. Collins diverges into the topic by breaking down the historical example of “outsider within” which provides black women a distinct point of critical lens that is beneficial. Following, Collins “[examines] the sociological significance of the Black feminist
Griffin , Farah. "Black Feminists and Du Bois: Respectability, Protection, and Beyond." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 568. (2000): 28-35. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. .